The next faces I saw were the faces of Wilbur and Woodrow, eyes wide and clinging to each other. I stared back at them.

“Your hair turned white!” Woodrow said, voice echoing in the empty nave. He pointed at the top of my head.

“You levitated in the air.” Wilbur stammered.

“You glowed!”

“You cast fire around you.”

“Your veins turned all the colors of the rainbow. I thought you were going to explode with purple blood!”

“You mumbled something about Chaos and Miracles and Saints. Oh, my.”

“Your hair turned white and you levitated in the air and you glowed!”

“All right!” I yelled as their voices mixed. Woodrow was cradling Wilbur as if he was on the verge of a breakdown. “I’m fine now. I’m fine!” And then, seeing them so perplexed, I broke into small bursts of chuckles.

I laughed so loud that it made their brows crease further and looked at each other with similar worried expressions. Woodrow’s fingers twitched to slap me back to my senses. Once I settled down, I looked at Saint Gaelmar at the altar, looking down at all of us, hand outstretched. I turned to them and breathed deeply. There was no question that they would believe me for all the things we’ve seen and have just recently witnessed. Still, as I narrated the visions, Wilbur’s face grew more and more serious, lips arranging into a firm frown. Woodrow’s, meanwhile, had his mouth open.

“Woodrow, your tongue is about to roll out.” Wilbur tapped him on the shoulder. Woodrow was sitting cross-legged like a young boy around a fire. Wilbur remained standing.

“You talked to the Saint. The actual Saint! I used their names in vain!” Woodrow said, clapping his hand over his mouth.

“They’re not gods, Woodrow. They were ordinary people who were blessed by the Miracle, whatever that is. I think it’s the opposite of the Unending Chaos. They don’t control us or care about the small details of our lives. Wilbur, stop staring at me.”

Wilbur did not look away. “You mentioned something about our lives before this. I was in a cauldron, stirring, before it exploded, you say? Woodrow, you don’t seem to be concerned about that.”

Woodrow shrugged. “I don’t remember much about my past. Like Ryne, I emerged like an empty canvas. If ever I was a soldier”

“Your subconscious mind still retains your knack for strategy, though. And there was always quickness to how you draw your dagger. I just thought it was a neat little party trick when you let your weapon fly straight to the center of your target back at Hollowed Fairstep. You could have a different personality. You could have had another life.”

“I’m trying not to dwell on it. I have so much to say. So much. But we'd better tackle things of importance, first." Woodrow let out a breath and stretched his arm. Then, he winked at me. “So, what’s next, Ryne?”

The question caught me off guard. I was so used to following my brothers everywhere and begging to be included. Now they were looking at me, waiting for what I had to say. More than that, Gaelmar gave me a choice.

“Actually, I want to ask you first.” I stared at their faces. It would only be fair. “

“Oh, shut up, Ryne, and tell us what to do,” Woodrow said. I smiled. “After all we’ve been through and after telling us what is happening in the world, you’d think we’re going to abandon you? Besides,” he said, raising his pointer finger, “I think sticking with each other and sticking with the actual personification of hope and possible next vessel of a Saint would be my best bet of surviving.”

Wilbur, however, was serious. “I’m actually concerned that you would want to go through with this. I know that the whole world is at stake, it’s just…” he shook his head. “you’re so brave. If I was put in your shoes, I’m not sure if I would take that kind of responsibility.”

“I’m not alone, Wilbur. I have you. I have the rest of our good brothers somewhere. Gaelmar himself told me to put my trust in you. And I’ve got a strong feeling that we can do this.”

“Where would we even begin?” Woodrow scratched his head.

I breathed. There were many strong feelings in my chest that weren’t before. They were mine, I was sure of that. Perhaps only emboldened by Gaelmar’s influence. He burned away the withered fears that still clung around me. I closed my eyes, felt inward like I had been doing for months, and saw from the blackness vague shapes, like pages out of a storybook.

It was the shape of flowers blooming in a garden. Then the shapes of crops growing in the granges.

“The cloister garth and the granges,” I said. “Follow me.” An invisible path was tugging me. A warm ribbon that hovered in the air. Gaelmar did not lie. He was guiding me.

We knew where it was. To the right of the nave was the cloister garth and the dormitories. As we were walking outside, I whispered to Wilbur.

“You don’t seem too bothered about the part of me talking to Saint Gaelmar. It could mean other things, too. You know. Maybe I can talk to the rest of the Saints, who knows?”

“I’m not dwelling much on that, like Woodrow is for the moment. You’re your own person, Ryne. You are a child. I know—” Wilbur said hurriedly when I protested. “You aren’t a squeamish, squealing, immature, innocent babe. You are older than all the children in the world as of this year. And yet, a part of your brain or spirit is still a child. Or else you wouldn’t be sharing such silly faces with Claude back at his kitchen table.”

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He was right. It surprised even me, how quick the joy was, the instinct to copy him and make him laugh. I led them to the side of the nave that leads to the clositered path and the granges. There at the center of the black ground was a dead oak tree, branches still mighty and symmetrical, like the antlers of a stag. Beams of moonlight fell through these branches, casting some areas of the ground with pale blue light.

“It’s not going to attack us, is it?” Woodrow said, standing behind Wilbur.

“No,” I replied, walking slowly towards the great oak tree. The entire cloister garth was bigger than any garth we ever built. It was the size of a decent-sized grange. I suppose it must be so, with the roots of the great oak tree running underneath.

From the footpath, my boots landed on soft soil again. I made my way to the waiting oak, growing bigger and eerily majestic the closer I approached. I placed my hand against its bark, looking up at its immense size. Ealhstan would barely reach half its height. I pressed my hand into the bark, drawing a little blood on my open palm.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Ryne and these are my brothers. We’re going to take care of Rothfield now. Could you let us do that?” The oak did not move, but I was certain that when the wind passed, its body swelled, making the branches shiver. I put my other hand on top of the one against the bark. “Wake, friend. Wake.”

For a moment, there was nothing. But from the place where I placed my hand, a warm light coursed through. Glowing yellow-white light reaching the tops of the trees and down to its roots underground. My knees wobbled, so I leaned back against the oak tree and nodded to Wilbur and Woodrow back at the cloistered path.

“Wilbur,” I called to him, gesturing to a small patch of ground near me. “The ground is awake now. This part, here. See?”

As soon as he was near enough, the dark ground from beneath my boots slowly came back to life. The soil churned as if it were breathing. Then from black, the soil turned grey and then to brown, the color of live earth. The border in which the life-brown met the decayed-black was faded green grass.

“As an alchemist, this feels like cheating,” Wilbur observed the ground, touching with his pale finger the grass that bordered dead soil from fresh. “Ryne, are you all right?”

“I think it takes something from me when I awaken it. It must recognize that Gaelmar has blessed me and that we’re caretakers of it now.” I looked at the patch of grass that was freshly made for us. “Pity, I can only manage a small patch.”

“You say that as if any child can wake the earth from its slumber with their blood. It is our turn to be amazed at what you can do.” Wilbur smiled. He looked back at the ground. “So, this is where it begins? The fate of the world in this garden?”

“With prayers and nurturing, I think so, yes. Wilbur…” I held his hands and smiled wide at him. “You can plant your own seeds here without Knox’s interference. Without fear of Blake reprimanding you.”

In his face was a growing wonder. His hand reached for his satchel and pulled out the paper from where he kept his seeds. He took out three of them, the last of his years of hard work and experiments. He placed it in his hands as if he was about to feed the birds. I was nervous. With his hands that easily clawed away dirt, he dug three fresh holes in which to plant them. Just three different kinds of seeds.

The branches swayed overhead as if craning to get a closer look. Wilbur dropped the first batch of seeds into its first home. “The enhanced feverfluke flowers for fevers. I’m going to call them yellowtongue...” Bright yellow seeds fell like sunbeams. He tore open the second batch of seeds, falling like ice-blue snowflakes. “The shivering maiden, for stopping colds and jitters and excess fluid discharge from the body.” The last one he looked oddly. He showed it to me first before putting it on the ground. “I do not know what these are, but they were a byproduct together with the sleeping powder. In his hands were bright green bean-shaped seeds with dark stripes. I touched it, sensing that it was fine enough, and nodded at Wilbur. “These, I’m going to call everbane. Just because.” He shrugged. And with that, he covered the seeds and patted them with the ground.

There was something nagging in my chest. “It feels like I’m supposed to say something. But I can’t find the right words.” I shrugged. “I can’t wait for your garden to grow this time, Wilbur. Look at all this space!” I said, standing up and extending my hand outwards. We shared a smile as he stood up and dusted the dirt off his hands. “Imagine all the colors of the rainbow, right here.”

“It’s going to take a lot of work, but we’re no stranger to that, are we?”

“No, we are not.”

“How did you know what to do? To awaken the tree and the garden?”

“Gaelmar is guiding me. He doesn’t speak to me anymore. He used his strength to speak with me and show me his visions. But it feels like my heart listens to what we all need to accomplish.”

We rejoined Woodrow back to the nave and made our way out into the granges. The warm path urged me to its center. There were no oak trees here, no remnant sentinel, but it led me to an empty space not far from the entrance of the church.

I placed both knees and palms on the ground this time like some sort of pagan ritual and I whispered again to the ground. “Awaken.” I buckled with the strength that left me. The air went from my lungs and into the ground, breathing my wish into the soil.

“Ryne!” Wilbur called.

I heard Woodrow struggle with him. “Let him do this, Wilbur. Gaelmar isn’t Blake. He’ll protect him. Let him know his own strength.”

And then it was over, and just like before, the ground softened and breathed with the air I had given it. “Wilbur,” I said, breathless. “Over here.”

Wilbur hurried, already grabbing the crop seeds he kept from his wooden bottles. I did not know what they were as he dug and planted them. Wordlessly, Wilbur and Woodrow helped me up and walked me back to the nave. They let me sit in the same spot where I beheld the visions.

“I’ll never get used to you lighting up like a candle,” Woodrow commented.

“Let me have the bright hair for once.” I winked at him.

Woodrow smiled, then looked at my face. “Your veins… they’ve faded a little. They’re still there, but washed over.” I brought my face to my hands, then to my hair. Woodrow spoke before I could ask. “It’s back to its pale blonde. Grey, actually.”

I nodded. And then I yawned. Suddenly, I was weary and there was a heaviness under my eyes. “There are dormitories near here. Maybe we should hide there.” But when I closed my eyes, another vision came. Several underground passages in Rothfield. Parts of the roots of the great oak tree can be seen from the ceiling. “There’s a door behind Gaelmar. The switch is the torchlight behind him.”

Woodrow arched his brow, looking like he approved of the new layout. “There aren’t any bodies there?”

“Skulls and some bones. They honored their fallen soldiers by putting their skulls on the walls so that they could forever look at them.”

“A bit macabre and a bit touching.” Woodrow and Wilbur disappeared behind Gaelmar’s statue and I heard a click. “The air doesn’t smell that bad, actually. Just damp, damp earth. Wilbur don’t collect the skulls.”

“I wasn’t going to,” came Wilbur’s retort.

I gave them time to wander around in the dark and let myself collect my breath. I gazed up at the statue of Gaelmar looking down at me. “This is it. This is the beginning.”